‘We're still knee deep in trying to get a feel for the
extent of the problem,’ Salt Lake City police Detective Dennis McGowan said on
Friday afternoon.

'A law enforcement agency using unencrypted, unsecure communications is a major fumble,' said Marcus Carey, who spent years securing communications for the U.S. National Security Agency.

‘What if this event was talking about some terrorist plot to blow up something and “they” were listening in? It could've been much worse if it was related to an Al Qaeda plot or something.’

EXCERPTS OF WHAT WAS SAID ON THE TAPPED CONVERSATION

A preliminary conversation is heard between British and U.S. law enforcement agencies before they discuss the operations against Anonymous:

'Please enter your passcode followed by the # key or *0 to speak with an operator. Your passcode has been confirmed. Please wait while you are joined to the conference'

'Hello?''Hey Stuart? Hey, it's Bruce''Hello Bruce, how're you doing?''Alright. I'm not sure if we're the only two on right now or not''Bruce, don't say anything too bad - I'm here with Matt''Do you wanna talk about cheese?''Cheese? What about that McDonald's at the Pentagon eh? I've told so many people. No-one believes me'

Then the British law enforcement agent 'Stuart' speaks about their investigations:

'We've still got Ryan Cleary and James Davis due at court on the 27th. Following some discussion with the New York office, we're looking to try and build some time in to allow some operational matters to fulfill on your side of the water'

'We've set back the further arrests of Kayla and Tee-flow (until) we know what's happening. We've got our prosecution council making an application in chambers, i.e. without the defence knowing, to seek a way to try and factor some time in that won't looking suspicious'

'We've cocked things up in the past, we know that, so it gives us more time to examine the track logs in any event'

'The lad who (was) of interest to one of the guys at New York. He got arrested just before Christmas (and) he did some stuff on the supposed 'project mayhem' - or whatever the hell that was - 'operation f**k you', where he hacked a website. I think it was the Manchester Credit Union, that's based in Jamaica. He defaced that site. He's a 15-year-old kid who’s basically just doing this all for attention and a bit of an idiot'

'We've been speaking with Irish around Palladium and Porn Source - and looking to share some intelligence with them and some information on that'

See video here

ANONYMOUS: THE HACKERS WITH NO CENTRAL LEADERS, BASEOR MISSION

Anonymous is a notorious group of hackers around the world who have no central authority.

Masked: Anonymous has hit the headlines in the past for shutting down websites

The group was in the news last month for briefly shutting down the FBI and Justice Department websites in the U.S. after popular file-sharing website Megaupload was closed down.

They work by agreeing on targets in internet chat rooms and then attacking at the same time. One of their most famous targets that generated much publicity was the Church of Scientology in 2008.

Anonymous also attacked the Amazon, Visa, MasterCard and PayPal websites in 2010 after the companies decided to stop working with Julian Assange’s controversial website WikiLeaks.

They have also attacked the websites of the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America for tightly controlling copyright, reported Agence France-Presse.

Last autumn one hacker affiliated with Anonymous was arrested for allegedly targeting Sony's PlayStation Network, Qriocity music streaming and Sony Online Entertainment.